ABSTRACT
It is generally believed that people react differently to the same life events and that these reactions have some emotional and cognitive consequences. Negative interpretations of events can lead to negative emotions, thoughts, and ideas. Positive interpretations, however, are likely to lead to positive emotions and thoughts. What causes people to make these positive or negative interpretations? In some cases an event is clearly positive (e.g., receiving an award) or negative (e.g., getting into a car accident). Other events, however, are more ambiguous and could be interpreted in a number of ways (e.g., Is that person smiling at me or smirking at me?). Our interpretations of these types of events are likely to result from our personality characteristics and from our current emotional states.
